14 January 2013

Review: Ack-Ack Macaque

Every so often, a book comes along that just the cover and title are enough to at least take a flyer on it. In the case of Ack-Ack Macaque, our cover shows our fearless hero, a monkey, smoking a cigar in a bomber jacket while shooting a pistol.

Yeah, I was in.

The good/bad news is that the cover, and the concept, don't tell the whole story. The book is actually a futuristic concept with a lot of questions about artificial intelligence and the idea of brain/personality swapping. Ack-Ack Macaque is actually a super-famous MMO character as well as a monkey in the real world, and, well, once he figures that out...

The book is sci-fi at its pulpy best. I could spend some time criticizing some aspects of the plot, but I'm not entirely sure there's a point to it - after all, at the end of the day? You're getting a book where a monkey wants to kick some Nazi tail and has to settle for the real world society he's stuck in instead.

A solid, quick read. If you're looking for something fun, superficial, and different, you can't do much better than this one.